Controlled trial evaluation of a General Practitioner education package on incontinence: use of a mailed questionnaire.

Objective: To evaluate whether an education package will significantly improve General Practitioners' knowledge of the aetiology, diagnosis and treatment of incontinence.

Subjects And Methods: Of the 510 General Practitioners contacted 124 returned a 27 item questionnaire (q1). The doctors were randomized into a test group (n = 80) who received an education package and a control group (n = 44) who did not. Follow-up questionnaires (q2) were sent to those in the test group at 6 weeks and to those in the control group at 4 weeks post-randomization. The answers to 18 of the 27 questions were found in the education package and the remaining nine were not. The test group was asked to rate the usefulness of the package.

Results: There was a mean increase in scores for the two questionnaires of 5.2 in the test group compared with 0.4 in the control group. The average increase in scores in the test group was highly significant compared with that in the control group (P < 0.001). The results remained significant when the non-responders were included. The change in scores in the test group was significant only for those 18 questions with answers contained in the education package. There was no significant improvement between the two groups for the change in scores for the nine questions not answered in the education package (P = 0.74). General Practitioners gave the package a mean rating of 4.2/5 and it was still being used more than 6 weeks after delivery by at least 31 of 49 General Practitioners.

Conclusions: For the General Practitioners who expressed an interest in receiving an education package on incontinence, and who answered the questionnaires, there was an improvement in the knowledge of incontinence directly attributable to the package.